Saudi Arabia to auction real estate owned by Al-Sanea: report

RIYADH, September 17, 2018

Saudi Arabia will auction real estate owned by indebted billionaire Maan Al-Sanea and his company starting next month to help repay billions of riyals due to creditors, Reuters news agency said quoting sources familiar with the matter.

Al-Sanea, ranked by Forbes in 2007 as one of the world’s 100 richest people, was detained last year for unpaid debts dating back to 2009 when his company, Saad Group, defaulted.

His case is separate from the scores of Saudi businessmen and prominent figures who were held on corruption charges last year at Riyadh’s Ritz Carlton hotel, the report said.

Etqaan Alliance, the consortium appointed late last year by a three-judge tribunal to resolve Saad’s debt dispute, will sell the assets over five months at auctions in the Eastern Province, Riyadh and Jeddah, according to two sources familiar with the matter, Reuters said.

The first auction - of undeveloped and commercial land plots, a farm, and income-generating residential buildings in Eastern Province’s Al Khobar and Dammam - will take place in late October, the sources added.

In March, Etqaan launched the first phase of the auction with around 900 vehicles owned by Saad Group, including trucks, buses, diggers, forklift trucks and golf carts. It raised around SR125 million, which went to repay some creditors, including unpaid workers. Proceeds from upcoming auctions will go to 34 creditors, mostly banks, the sources said.